Hastings Bowing Out?

I said a while back that the best thing Alcee Hastings could do for his party and Nancy Pelosi would be to bow out of the bidding for chair of the intelligence committee. Well, better late than never, maybe. Fox News is reporting that Hastings may well be doing just that. As usual in cases like this, there are claims and counterclaims flying about on anonymous wings.

Though no formal decisions have been announced and Pelosi aides say the situation remains fluid, they suggest that the meeting at Pelosi's Capitol Hill office was requested by Hastings so he could bow out of the race before Pelosi denies him the job.

"He knows he's not going to get it," said one senior House Democratic aide. "The question is why he didn't bow out long ago."

But a source close to Hastings says "it is simply not true" that the congressman wants to end his chances for the chairmanship.

In comments over the weekend, Hastings left the impression he was resigned to not receiving the chairmanship from Pelosi, due in large measure to his impeachment from the federal bench in 1989 for conspiring to accept a bribe from two convicted racketeers, and then, according to the Senate impeachment trial, lying to cover it up.

Pelosi aides have been scrutinizing the House and Senate proceedings in the Hastings impeachment, FOX News has learned, and apparently don't like what they have seen.

"It's ugly," said one Pelosi aide. "It's just really, really bad."

Hastings has public support from many quarters, including from Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who will lead the Financial Services Committee next session.

"Alcee Hastings has served in the Congress for a long time, since the events that were the cause of the impeachment. I think he's entitled to be judged" on his performance since then, Frank told "FOX News Sunday."

In a letter to the House Democratic Caucus last week, Hastings wrote that he requested to meet with Pelosi to argue that his being impeached should be irrelevant to his becoming the next intelligence panel chairman.

We'll know soon enough. Frankly, it would be a really bad move for Pelosi and the Democrats to let Hastings on to that committee. It will give the opposition a ten-foot club to beat them with. Politically, the right thing to do here is bow out and try to look graceful about it. He should have done so without the public fight to get the job, however. But, like I said, better late than never.